Although Andy Sheppard has been featured on a dozen albums with Carla Bley for WATT, this is his first album for ECM proper. The British saxophonist heads an international quintet in a programme of self-penned pieces, all buoyant and strongly melodic. Sheppard’s elegant saxophone and the strongly-contrasting guitars of Parricelli and Aarset are lifted up by the rhythmic drive of Arild Andersen’s muscular bass and the crisp, dynamic tabla of Kuljit Bhamra, a musician well known in the UK as a key figure in the Asian pop and bhangra movements.